In view of increasing amounts of machine type communication (MTC) traffic and limited available frequencies, cellular network providers (hereinafter “cellular providers”) have implemented congestion mitigation techniques such as (i) access class barring, (ii) extended access barring, and (iii) low access priority indications to prevent or limit a cellular-enabled end point device from accessing the cellular network to transport data. In some cases, the connection to the cellular network might be available but not optimal to the payload of data transmitted by a cellular-enabled end point device due to a lower bandwidth connection or a high latency connection when the payload requires a high data rate or lower latency, or both. In either case, the connection issues to the cellular networks could be specific to a cellular-enabled end point device.
A mesh network is a network topology in which nodes of the network can relay data for other nodes of the network. An example of a wireless mesh network is an advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) system for collecting data from utility meters (e.g., electricity, gas, water, etc.), reporting the collected data to a utility, and communicating data between the meters and utility. In such an AMI system, the meters may transmit data to access points (also referred to as gateways) which serve as an interface between a local area network composed of meter nodes, and a separate network through which the access point(s) is/are connected to a back office or central station of the utility. The access points may communicate with the back office using a cellular network. The use of such cellular networks may be restricted according to data usage policies designated by the cellular providers. For example, the cellular provider of a particular cellular network may restrict one or more of the access points to an individual monthly data limit. The access points can utilize different cellular providers, each of which can impose different data restrictions.